The Aztec Clan
by Inspirationbynight
Summary: fic 7. Well just about everyone knows there's another clan out there but will they go to the Gargoyle Gathering? And Demona wants to be part of their clan but how will that go? How far will Demona let Lily push her nerves?
1. Chapter 1

The Aztec Clan

By Inspirationbynight

Disclaimer: I don't own Demona, who is one of the stars in this fic *gasp*. I don't own Gargoyles either.

Author's Note: Ok, please bear with me. **This fic is #**7. It takes place two weeks after Reunions…and Valentines (#5) and during Meanwhile, so this is late February-early March.

The Aztec Clan

"Priestess, who is he?" Cuauhtemoc asked Lily upon awakening. The clan formed a loose circle at the base of Malinche around the crouched figure before the leader and Lily.

The figure was a young man in his twenties, was on his knees holding out an offering that looked like a large bean.

He spoke very little English, so Lily spoke to the youth in Nahuatl while the rest of the clan and Demona waited in anticipation.

The youth spoke in a formal voice as he told his story of how he had come upon the site while Lily translated for Demona.

"_I live with my mother and grandfather. As a child, my grandfather told me stories of our history, passed down from his father and mother and their parents._

_He told me of the Empire that we lost and the Guardians, the ones who protected us. They were sealed inside this mountain until the day the sacrifices were ended by a priestess._

_As a child I came here every week with my grandfather for his stories until I was allowed to come alone. A few years ago, I was searching the base for a legendary key that would open the mountain. As I grew into a man I could not come every week, but instead came once a month. A few years ago, I finally discovered the door's seal but could not open it. I never gave up believing the stories."_

"You have shown much devotion to something that could have only been a story," Montezuma commented with curiosity.

The youth raised his curly black head and said, "I have seen the pictures that my ancestor made and passed down to his children. Both the girls and boys received them, so they would remember you and tell their children."

"What is your name?" Lily asked him, motioning for him to rise.

He revealed to be wearing a loin cloth-like skirt and a single cloth sheet pancho. "My grandmother named me Chicahua, but everyone and the people of the town call me Carlos. If you need anything, I am here to serve."

Demona's eyes lit up at Carlos' offer. _Finally, a human who knew his place,_ she thought to herself.

The leader , his Second, whispered to his Second nonchalantly, "What is your opinion on the youth?"

"I have a good feeling from him. He may just be the bridge we need from our time to this one," his a red-orange skinned mate with bull horns answered with a confident smile.

Cuauhtemoc nodded his acceptance of the young man. In the strange land they had awakened to, allies and friends were most welcome.

Lily smiled and shook Carlos' hand. "Well Carlos, if you are able, we could use a guide. My friends and I are unfamiliar with the towns near the mountain."

"/I'd be honored to help the Guardians,/" Carlos answered with a smile.

^*^*^*^*^*

Demona paced on the slope of La Malinche, shutting out everything around her. The new development with the youth had started turning the wheels in her mind. There was a good chance she could use him to get closer to the clan.

"I'd be on my best behavior if I were you," Lily whispered to Demona, keeping a calm expression on her human guise. Demona hissed at Lily but said nothing otherwise. She was surprised not to have sensed anyone coming up behind her.

Lily continued as Demona gave her a sideways glare. "That means you can't treat humans as you have been doing, or you'll lose the clan before you've even been accepted."

That was easier said than done. After so many centuries of being alone...of losing her clan twice—three times if you included the Clones—the last thing Demona wanted was to lose Cuauhtemoc's clan before she was even accepted. As far as gargoyle hospitality went, they were not open to her as other clans had been when she approached them.

Lily was practically clan to them, and this human who had just shown up...! He was already more welcomed than she was! Her blood boiled but she kept it to a low simmer. She was on thin ice as the human saying went.

Demona turned suddenly to the owner of the hand that lay on her shoulder. The young black serpentine gargress slithered back. Demona felt chagrined at herself for allowing her thoughts to take her off guard again. That rarely happened to her, but ever since she came to Mexico, she had been getting lost in her thoughts more and more frequently...

The green-haired female began to communicate slowly in her native tongue and hand gestures. She asked if Demona would join them in the night's exploration. Demona agreed and was ushered back up the slope towards the mountain side for takeoff. They would forage, eat, and then follow after Lily and Carlos to the nearest town.

"Coaxoch," a pink male of the third generation sat beside his serpentine sister around the campfire. "/What do you think of the foreign female?/" he asked her in Nahuatl, referring to Demona.

The black gargress made a slight shake of her head to move her hip-length green hair from coming over her shoulder before answering her spiky brother, "/_Achcauhtli_ isn't sure about her/," she said, meaning their leader. "/I look at her and she seems so angry. It is hard to approach her./" She adjusted her green and white sash over her brown V-neck sleeveless top as recoiled to a more comfortable position keeping her wings uncapped to gather heat from the fire.

Coaxoch was one of Tenoch's rookery siblings that swayed with the Leader's every mood and was hesitant to make her own decision without some form of input, advice, look, or word the Leader had recently said or done.

Tenoch picked at his goat meat, resting a triple-spiked elbow above his double-spiked knee. Holes were made around the knees of his kahki cotton capris not only to accommodate his knee spikes but to show them off.

Unlike many of his clan, he wore little in the way of jewelry. He claimed he was born adorned and any more would be gaudy. "/I feel it too, but I also feel she has a deep hurt inside her./" he confided to his rookery sister.

Coaxoch regarded her cactus-like skinned brother, aptly named for his appearance but a misnomer to his empathy. His head was covered in spikes as well similar to an artichoke down to the base of his skull where a tuft of black hair was tied into a long ponytail. There were three facial barbs on each side of his face starting at his jaw line and ending in front of his ears. His shoulders sported three spikes and wing hands had three digits and the elbows of his wings had two wing spikes.

"/We should know more about her before calling her 'friend',"/ Coaxoch said with a quick sideways glance to Demona.


	2. Chapter 2

When the meal was done with, Cuauhtemoc detailed the night's outing. He would take a few gargoyles that night and leave the rest to guard the eggs. The next night he would take another group to the same town while Carlos went with Nolli and a small group to another town. Montezuma would stay with the rest of the 13 members, and so they would alternate so everyone would be familiar with the lay of the land. The land, as it was, was desert. Desert shrubs, desert grass, and a few brave trees that dared to grow in dry rocky soil.

Carlos agreed to guide them but would have to leave within a few more hours to return to his family and be ready to work the following day. Lily and Demona volunteered (though Demona had remained silent) to attain maps of the cities to assist Carlos and the clan the next evening.

Once the night was planned out and the group of five picked, Carlos and Lily were carried by two youths while Demona glided behind.

Demona glanced frequently at the small female who came with them, thinking to recognize her. It was the same young slate blue female who played the naming game the previous night while guarding the eggs with her rookery brother. Demona had not been paying so much attention to the individuals as she was to the fact that there was another clan living not to far from New York, but now she gave more attention to the little gargress called Nenetl.

She was odd. That was another reason Demona frequented glances at her. Nenetl was a different shade of blue from Demona—grey-blue, slate blue, or some such human name for the shade, and she was small. Nenetl's wings appeared to be attached to her limbs as Lexington's were but her wings were truly unique.

They were split like the butterfly wings of one of her former rookery sisters but they did not move as freely. It seemed as if the wings had changed their mind in the growing process to not be part of the gargress's limbs but merely follow their curvature, thus growing larger than normal and awkwardly. The grey-blue gargress steadied herself several times by holding out her arms. Demona also noticed Nenetl's rookery siblings kept a close eye on her. They knew gliding was a challenge for their small rookery sister.

If it wasn't for the fact that the third generation of gargoyles was all adolescents and the eggs had yet to hatch, Demona would have mistaken Nenetl for a hatchling. Her wide eyes showed her moods and state of mind too clearly. The three prongs that grew on either side of her head were webbed and almost unnoticeable due to her thick dark brown hair which she parted deeply on the right and braided in a single plait down her back to her waist.

Having been caught twice now looking at the small gargress, Demona turned her attention to the landscape. It was mainly rock with trees, grass, and bushes sprouting in random areas as if trying to mask the sparseness of the land. The little town was fairly quiet as the majority of people gathered themselves into their homes for the night. The gargoyles surveyed the town from above, marking out certain buildings to one another and comparing them to the structures of their lost time.

"/It is very different from what we knew/," the white-haired Second commented upon landing when Carlos, Lily and their carriers had stopped to rest.

"/It's so different! They have many buildings but it is small compared to the Empire/." Coaxoch said, illustrating with her claws.

"/And quiet/," Tenoch, the pink spiky male added. "/The city would have had warriors patrolling the paths and priests performing final cleansings/."

"/Crime is little compared to the capital and the larger cities. Everyone here knows everyone like family/," Carlos explained.

"/ I like the calm of this town but I miss the sounds from the Empire. The humans would still be awake at this hour,/" Nentl agreeing with her rookery brother.

The fern green leader folded his arms across his chest below the heavy gold pendant that hung from his thick neck. "/If we are to protect the new people, we must learn to communicate with them, and though it carries a more peaceful air, how they see us may be more of a challenge to overcome than our lifestyle in the Empire/," Cuauhtemoc said thoughtfully. "/We may not need so many days to see the towns after all. Nolli, retrieve five others to see to the next town and then return to Malinche/."

"You will not go through the changes alone my friend," Lily reminded him, pointing herself, Carlos and Demona. "We will help you." Lily informed Cuauhtemoc she and Demona would leave during the day to prepare English and Spanish lessons for the clan.

Demona greatly disliked being out of the loop. _All right_, she admitted to herself, _I hate it_. Well, it was now or never. Demona stepped forward, asking Nolli to wait and hear her out. Demona began to explain about her 'gift'—with Lily translating—to change into a human at sunrise and back to a gargoyle at sunset.

At worst, the group seemed to be skeptical. At best, they did not even flinch.

Lily translated for Demona, that Cuauhtemoc knew Lily could do things the priests could not and thought that she had changed Demona. Lily did not take the credit, much to Demona's surprise. The fay was more complicated than she presented herself to be.

Cuauhtemoc and Nolli hoped that Demona would use her gift to talk to the new people about the clan and put them in the good graces of the humans.

"It seems difficult Demona," Lily confided in English. "Getting the humans to become aware of them, restoring this clan's place as protectors among these people, forging alliances..."

It was a perfect opportunity for Demona: A chance to be a hero when over a millennium she had been a villain. A challenge, one that Demona had not committed to trying without the ulterior motive of destroying all humans. _To restore the Aztec clan to their rightful place above the humans_, she thought. Yes... she could see it in her mind's eye. But first, the fruit had to grow from a tree and the tree must first be planted.

Lily relayed Demona's eagerness to assist the clan with their new goal, glossing over Demona's attitude towards humanity. That was a wrecking ball for another night.

Once Nolli departed, the group split into pairs to survey the town once again.

^*^*^*

Two weeks later...

"That's Carlos's _casa_," Xicohtencatl pointed ahead of her, fingering her necklace of gold chunks. The dark brown gargress dove for the empty street with her blue-green rookery brother behind her. As she touched down, she fingered through her black wavy hair causing the three gold bracelets on her left wrist to clink together.

There was no one to admire her pre-slumber fussing and Eztli told her so.

Xico was curvaceous and she knew it like she knew she was showing off her good side in the way she turned her at her waist to glare at her rookery brother before continuing her primping with her shawl-shirt. It was a sea-green rectangular material with a solid yellow border that wrapped around her shoulders and fastened at her right arm; the hem ending just above the round gold clasp that adorned and held her skirt.

The skirt was a matching sea-green material with a yellow border. It was split in the back for her tail and curved up towards the front where a rectangle loin-cloth of the same material hung in the front and all that was held with a yellow ribbon then secured with the clasp.

The pre-dawn light began to grow brighter as the two gargoyles knocked on Carlos' door. His mother, a stout white-haired woman in a maroon and white printed dress answered the door. Her alert eyes took them in with a glance before letting them in.

"Good morning Senora Rafaela," Eztli greeted in rough Spanish, nudging his sister to be polite with his smooth elbow.

"_Buenas_," Xico said as she squeezed by for the back rooms where members of the clan could stay hidden during the day if they did not make it back to La Malinche before dawn.

The elderly woman made a vague suggestion about the gargress and her attitude which made Eztli chuckle. "/We will clean up after ourselves tonight/," the beaked gargoyle promised before following after his dark brown sister.

Carlos came through the blue and brown blanket-covered door that separated the main room from the bedrooms. He covered his yawn with one hand and raised his right in greeting at the two. Eztli raised a hand in quick response before rushing inside the little room to the right Carlos and his family used for storing grains. Sounds of people waking and performing chores told the young man that his friends had made it inside just in time. Xico and Eztli crouched down wings folded over them looking like large egg-shaped boulders.

It had only occurred once the week before when Nenetl and Chimalli (a yellow-gold male gargoyle with three chin barbs) had stayed out very late exploring the small town. They made it with only minutes to spare. The small gargoyle had been so enthusiastic about patrolling and sightseeing, she turned to stone mid-sentence as she talked to Carlos's mother about her night. Rafaela immediately liked Nenetl and had invited her to come over for dinner/breakfast despite having to walk around two stone statues all day in her living room/kitchen.

Carlos prepared for work, greeting his grandfather who was also getting ready for the day's chores. Rafaela would go to the fields and his grandfather would work at home carving or tending someone's animals while Carlos went into town. On his way, Carlos met Lily and they chatted until they reached the little town before going off to their own work.

Despite the short time the gargoyles had been awake in modern time they applied themselves to their new life and learning Spanish. Five of them along with Cuauhtemoc were learning English in preparation for the Gargoyle Gathering. Lily offered to spell them in case the language barrier proved difficult to get through, but Cuauhtemoc, as well as the others, were firm in their decision to learn quickly and efficiently in four month's time with no magical assistance.

Lily and Demona stood on the rough ground down the hill from the clan looking like two females casually talking. It was a deceiving scene.

Demona glared at Lily but said nothing. Lily had flat out refused to translate anything negative Demona wanted to say about humans.

It was unfair.

Demona knew the horrors humans were capable of including killing their own kind. She had experienced firsthand the cruelty and hate of humans. She had seen humans kill her kin and knew the taste of their betrayl. She knew they were ignorant bigots ruled by fear and she knew she had to warn Cuauhtemoc and his clan against protecting them. Demona just knew they would end up like Goliath and the others: weak, delusional, discovered and hunted out of fear and hate. She had to discourage them. Did they want to be wiped out like the rest of their clan, like all the other clans had been?

Besides, Demona was the one who had dictionaries and writing material flown in to help the clan along with extra food supplies. She was the one that had been planning and continued to plan for the clan's assimilation among the humans. She had already begun by initiating contact with the president of Mexico and the officials of the surrounding towns. She continued to keep track of Nightstone and had to trim reach into other business territories. She went on patrol or stayed with the majority of the clan or did some late night tasks with Carlos—in short she followed Cuauhtemoc's orders and Nolli's requests. Surely all she was doing entitled her to try to persuade them?

Lily still refused. "If you want to be part of the clan, you need stop behaving like a human and remember what being a gargoyle is about."

What could she say? Demona stared open mouthed then ground her teeth and glared a red glare of hate but she didn't move. Something cold and hard within her kept her as still has a statue. Her claws were extended and her legs ready to spring but the something grew heavy and weighed her down. The two females stood with steady eye contact, ignoring the sounds that drifted on the wind from the clan who were preparing their nightly routine up the hill. Then the thing within her let her go and Demona abruptly sighed in defeat and relaxed her stance.

Rubbing her eyes in weariness from her internal conflict Demona turned away from Lily. Demona had to admit if only to herself that she had been clanless for so long that she felt—and was—new to clan life. She was torn between flying the iron chains she had used on Puck down to Mexico to use on Lily so she could talk to the clan without a translator and accepting the fay's reasoning and advice. She was torn between returning to her business and staying with the clan to become one of them.

A month ago she would have thought the situation ludicrous and would have dealt with the fay and the clan as she had in the past but ever since she had bargained with the fay she had begun to think differently. At first she had not noticed every irregularity she did but then she found herself surprised by the unexpected changes and even that emotion was beginning to fade. She would not admit now nor later that Lily's reasoning and advice was logical and sane. When Demona thought about it in business terms, everything the fay said guided her in the right direction to her wish.

Nothing enraged Demona more than when Lily made an inference or directly accused Demona of acting like a human. Demona could do nothing without losing the little ground she had with the clan. Attacking Lily would be end of everything she wanted to achieve from her bargain with the fay, irritable, accursed, and worst of all, right. The disguised fay was holding her back with a firm grip that was invisible and intangible.

Demona moved her fingers to her temples, eyes still closed as she tried to clear her thoughts. She was going on patrol with Chimalli and Montezuma and had to put on a good face.

"Let's get something to eat." Without another word about their discussion, Lily started back up the hill knowing Demona would follow.


End file.
